Conventional Internet browsers were designed mainly as text layout engines. Such browsers, therefore, are typically very limited in the ways in which they deliver multimedia content. As broadband Internet access becomes more widely available, however, multimedia playback of content, including, but not limited to video content and audio content, will become an increasingly important feature that an Internet browser should provide.
Conventionally, upon encountering an embedded multimedia object, a browser merely provides a rendering area and does not stay involved with communicating timing information to a media player or passing synchronization information between a media player and other types of content. Instead, with respect to timing, the media player is essentially autonomous once it has been instantiated, and provided a rendering area, from a browser.
Accordingly, there is a need in the prior art for increased communication between media players and browsers such that a browser is capable of knowing when a player has finished downloading content, when the player is ready to playback content, what the player's time rate is, and the like. In addition, there is a need in the prior art for allowing a browser to be capable of causing a media player to perform various timing and synchronization-related operations, including, but not limited to commanding the player to start, stop, and pause playback, and to speed up and/or slow down media playback in accordance with any elements with which a media player's playback is to be synchronized. There is also a need in the prior art for seamlessly integrating content from various disparate sources, which may require various disparate media players, in accordance with a generic set of interfaces for exchanging information, including, but not limited to, timing and synchronization information, between browsers and media players.
Accordingly, there is a need in the prior art for techniques that enable generic multimedia hosting by Internet browsers, whereby the browser becomes an improved platform for delivering media rich content in conjunction with text content, thereby allowing for a tighter integration of multimedia content into web content.